“We are basically like an island,” she said of California, Oregon and Washington. “We use our own fuel, and we depend on our own refineries.”

Getting gas here from other states takes a lot of time, she said. If a natural disaster damaged our refineries, Mac said, “prices in Washington would just skyrocket because it’s harder for Washington to be getting gas from, say, Indiana.”

Gas prices in Springfield, Missouri surged 20 cents overnight, she said — from $2 per gallon to $2.20.

“It’s supply and demand. We are a capitalist society,” she said.

Gas prices should level out in the next couple of weeks as refineries restart, she said. As long as crude oil prices remain steady, at around $45 per barrel, prices should return to where they were before the hurricane struck.

“We are going into winter. The demand for gasoline is going to be lower,” Mac said. “We are switching to winter-blend gasoline, which is a fuel that is cheaper to produce.”